Low in calories but loaded with fiber and vitamins, salads are one of the healthiest meals you can have. Well, that is if you make the right choices. Adding too many high-calorie toppings can actually cause you to gain weight, so keep these tips in mind the next time you build yourself a salad.Source: Jupiter Images

I'm not a fan of dressings so I just use lemon juice to spruce up my salad :)

5 years

I find that i'm willing to eat more of a simple salad if it has a tasty dressing. i'm trying to skip the pre-made dressings - all those additives and preservatives stink! so im trying to make more on my own. i recently made this avocado and basil dressing. its perfect on a bed of mixed greens. i hope it inspires you!
basil and avocado dressing (makes 2 cups)
1 avocado, pitted and meat removed from shell
½ cup of basil, packed
3 tablespoons of good olive oil
3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons of honey
½ teaspoon of salt
1 – 1 ½ cups of filtered water, to thin
Directions
Combine the avocado, basil, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt and honey to your food processor. Pulse a few times to combine. Then add ½ cup of water and blend. Continue adding water up to 1 ½ cups total until you reach your desired consistency. Toss in a serving with salad and enjoy!
I find that in more delicate salads 2-3 tablespoons (almost 1/4 cup) of this dressing goes a long way. In firmer salads, such as in a curly green kale salad, this dressing massages beautifully into the leaves, tenderizing them nicely.

Wow, that's amazing. I always thought that a salad would forever be healthy no matter what you put on it because of all of the lettuce, tomatoes, and stuff. The bit about the dressing being pretty high in carbs per serving was crazy so after reading the 5 tips, I immediately started making a salad for breakfast and when I took out a few of my favorite creamy style dressings, I found that some were 10g of carbs for only 2 tablespoons! I never actually bothered to look at the nutrition label of salad dressings before so I was pretty shocked. I was thinking like, "So this is probably one of the many reasons why I'm not losing much weight."
So to fix this problem, I used Balsamic Vinegar as a substitute for my usual dressings and it tasted amazing still with only 5 cals, 0g fat and just 2g carbs per tbsp.
I also tried only using the fresh vegetables in my fridge for my salad and at first I didn't think I would like it without bacon bits, glazed almonds && walnuts, dried raisons and things like that but it was actually very yummy especially with eggs.